Optimized thermal management of a battery energy-storage system (BESS) inspired by air-cooling inefficiency factor of data centers

Abstract

Inspired by the ventilation system of data centers, we demonstrated a solution to improve the airflow distribution of a battery energy-storage system (BESS) that can significantly expedite the design and optimization iteration compared to the existing process. A defective cooling system of a BESS decreases the overall operational efficiency and increases the risk of thermal runaway, but current design optimizations rely on a case-by-case approach. The solutions of this fashion are both time-consuming and costly because of the laborious recursive process. The desire to eliminate the time for development motivates us to pursue a more general path for design optimization. In this work, we identified the similarity of geometry between the data center and the BESS, as well as the factors that induced the unbalanced airflow distribution. Inspired by the data-center thermal management, we propose a generalized solution of layout arrangement that we applied to the BESS design. We performed a quantitative analysis of cooling performance and investigated the flow patterns under given operating configurations. After modification, the maximum temperature difference of the battery cells drops from 31.2°C to 3.5°C, the average temperature decreases from 30.5°C to 24.7°C, and the coefficient of performance (COP) increases four-fold. The modification shows an improvement in temperature uniformity, overall temperature and COP. The cooling solution applicable to the general container BESS design demonstrates the enormous potential for an effective and rapid design optimization.